{"id":4542,"date":"2011-12-29T15:55:48","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T22:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4542"},"modified":"2011-12-29T15:55:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T22:55:48","slug":"bahrain-to-host-saudi-princes-news-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4542","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain to host Saudi Prince&#8217;s news network"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bahrain to host Saudi prince&#8217;s news network<\/strong><br \/>\nBy ADAM SCHRECK, 28 December, 2011 &#8211; AP Business Writer<\/p>\n<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) &#8212;  Bahrain has been picked to host the headquarters for Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal&#8217;s new international Arabic news network despite months of unrest, according to the tiny Gulf kingdom&#8217;s media oversight authority.<\/p>\n<p>Alwaleed&#8217;s channel, dubbed Alarab, will be based in the Bahraini capital Manama&#8217;s new Media City office complex, Sheik Fawaz bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, a member of the Bahraini royal family and head of the country&#8217;s Information Affairs Authority, said in a statement late Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The network is expected to be launched next December with an initial staff of about 300 people, according to the Bahraini statement.<\/p>\n<p>Alwaleed&#8217;s office has not itself said where the channel will be based.<\/p>\n<p>Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist hired to lead the network, said by email Wednesday he expects the deal to be finalized later in the day.<\/p>\n<p>The channel aims to focus &#8220;on the important shifts taking place across the Arab world, with an emphasis on freedom of speech and freedom of press,&#8221; Alwaleed said in September.<\/p>\n<p>The new channel will compete against older pan-Arab news networks bankrolled by wealthy Gulf backers, including Qatar&#8217;s Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, which is funded by Saudi investors but based in Dubai.<\/p>\n<p>Alwaleed has signed a deal with business news service Bloomberg LP to provide content for Alarab. That could potentially put it in competition with Dubai-based business news channel CNBC Arabiya as well.<\/p>\n<p>The Saudi prince, through the Kingdom Holding Co. investment firm he controls, has a major stakes in Citigroup Inc., Apple Inc. and Rupert Murdoch&#8217;s News Corp.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/n\/a\/2011\/12\/28\/financial\/f022035S14.DTL\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D4542&amp;text=Bahrain+to+host+Saudi+Prince%27s+news+network&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahrain to host Saudi prince&#8217;s news network By ADAM SCHRECK, 28 December, 2011 &#8211; AP Business Writer DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) &#8212; Bahrain has been picked to host the headquarters for Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal&#8217;s new international Arabic news network despite months of unrest, according to the tiny Gulf kingdom&#8217;s media oversight <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4542#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2266],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4543,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}